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<p>When I can’t quickly find a graceful grammatical fix for a sentence, I find that scrapping it completely usually leads to better writing. Your student might consider that being more specific would sidestep the problem entirely and be more vivid to boot: “Jane tied her shoe.”</p>
<p>Well, that’s certainly what I’d do if it were my sentence, Consolation. But it would be a pedagogical mistake to attempt to enlist my students in that degree of nicety.</p>
<p>My main aim is to create the conditions for them to intuit that they write to communicate. If my main approach were as rule enforcer, they won’t lose the tenuous connections they have to their own voices.</p>
<p>However, I am told by same linguist friends that “their” for a singular possessive is not considered an acceptable usage in standard English. The published writing my students see is often so much worse than theirs that I am left in quandary. As they say, “Dr ------, these people are being paid.” </p>
<p>I don’t know what has happened to newspaper and magazine writing, but I have difficulty hold young students to standards abandoned by professionals.</p>
<p>Oh, and just as a small aside, I think to meet and to meet with imply different things so the second usage is useful even if a vulgar Americanism.</p>
<p>My pet peeve right now is phrases like, “They were the best of friends,” rather than “They were best friends,” but I think these phrases are here to stay.</p>
<p>If you think this grammar thing is an issue, why don’t you write a short note to the admissions department at NU. You can explain that you noted a grammatical error on one of their mailings.</p>
<p>Well, it isn’t as if there is a committee composed of Northwestern English professors and English majors that parses every public document produced by the university. It’s more likely that a graduate of, who knows, Princeton wrote the text, it was proofed by a graduate of Stanford, and turned over to a graduate of Western Illinois whose expertise is in design and layout, not grammar. As others have mentioned, this may say more about the state … or fluidity … of grammar in the country, and less about the quality of an entire institution. I wouldn’t use the word petty, but neither would I judge Northwestern by this error. I would also agree that mistakes made on CC is one thing; mistakes, especially blatant ones, in a brochure mailed to thousands of people is something else.</p>
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<p>I hear you. Totally. :D</p>
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<p>This reminds me of the old joke about Charles Dickens confronting a copy editor fresh out of college (or possibly fresh out of the Radcliffe Publishing program 
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<p>“‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ Come now, Mr. Dickens, it could hardly have been both!”</p>
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Guess I’ll display my ignorance, as the above sentence doesn’t look very incorrect to me! Would it be better to write, “Interviews are not required; however, they can provide insight.”? (Dang! Now I have to question whether I should put a period inside the quotation marks and a ? outside, or a ? inside the quotation marks. :eek:</p>
<p>semicolon required.</p>
<p>as others have said, criticizing a grammatical mistake in a brochure sent out by a prestigious college such as Northwestern might seem petty, but judging that entire institution - and making such a life-changing decision as choosing a college - based on this kind of mistake seems to go waayyy beyond the definition of “petty.” ;)</p>
<p>One can only hope that the institution won’t judge an applicant by a “comma instead of a semi-colon” mistake. (Actually, there was a thread that noted that the profuse use of semi-colons was a tip off that the student’s essay may have been massaged by an adult…so maybe using the comma instead of the semi-colon could only HELP a student’s essay.)</p>
<p>Yes, I think you are being petty to pick on Northwestern for a small error. Certainly, this information is probably provided because today’s youth are too busy and self-involved to actually search out information themselves. If the questions asked on CC are any indication, Colleges have been asked the question time and time again, so much so that some office assistant was forced to come up with a general way to address it. There are many errors today that SHOULD prove glaring, but when almost all writing, except perhaps academic, seems to reflect a ton of grammar and usage problems, it is hard to hold kids to a different standard. They can see the example of perfect grammar, literally, no where else. Ending a sentence in a preposition was an afront to my sensibilities and the midwest expression, “Come with” used as a full sentence felt like nails on a chalkboard. Tweny years later, I say the same thing. But the point is that Kid’s today seem only willing to do what is a resume builder or say the things they think will directly impact their admissions, which is why the “Do I have to do an interview?” question is probably asked so much in the first place!</p>
<p>While I might point out the error to Northwestern, I might be careful they don’t get the impression that you (and therefore your child) is a fuss-budget that will drive them crazy with petty issues over the next four years if your son/daughter is admitted!!</p>
<p>Grammar, punctuation and usage are important, but as a whole they are not so valuable that they should replace the message.</p>
<p>Petty, yes…but, I find it more annoying that admissions offices make these kinds of errors. Last year my son applied RD to a relatively small(6500 undergrads) east coast university using the common application. This university also gave the applicant the option of using their own paper application that could be downloaded from the school’s website. My son received a phone call from the admissions department that he didn’t indicate his choice of EA or RD. So, he indicated his choice of RD. He then called the other schools to which he applied to make sure he had filled out the form correctly. The other fine institutions had him as RD (he had no EA schools). </p>
<p>It really bothered me that this particular school couldn’t read the application properly. He downloaded his copy and had it in a file. As he was talking to admissions, he asked if there was a part of the application that could have possibly been cut off when printing, they still said,“no.” This school was his second choice…thank goodness he got into his first choice. I guess I was being petty too, but it bothered me.</p>
<p>Many schools (mine included) have offices that write and design publications, often with outside publishing firms. Some schools outsource web and print communication completely. If the publication in question was produced by an outside group, I imagine the admission staff is similarly annoyed by the error.</p>
<p>BTW, I can’t tell you how often I read my posts (here or on my blog) and find an error. Thank goodness for the edit button and for understanding folks that don’t point out my typos!</p>
<p>Agreed Dean. However, that the edit button disappears after a very short window is equally bothersome!</p>
<p>All these perfectionists. All that I can say is I can’t imagine being held to that standard in all things and I wonder how it must feel as the kid. Is the same level of perfection expected? </p>
<p>6,500 is considered small???</p>
<p>It’s one thing to take fault in written English from someone whose major is English or whose job is Editing. It’s yet another if you rule out a superb school because of a silly error mailed by some part-timer or contractor in the Admissions department.</p>
<p>NW has some of the top Scientist minds and most envelope pushing ongoing research. If you don’t want your kids to be exposed to such myriad opportunities, no sweat! There will be plenty of other parents who will line up to take the opportunity and their financial support.</p>
<p>I can relate to post #52. A while ago my D sent out numerous e-mails to college coaches in which she stated her year of graduation, her PSAT scores, and her best times (PR’s) in various track events. I can’t tell you how many of them replied to that very e-mail with the request that she send them her test scores and PR’s. Now they probably receive a lot of mail, and maybe they have an pre-written e-mail template that they just send out indiscriminately. But it still was a little disappointing that they hadn’t paid any attention to what she wrote them. One school kept hounding her for data even though she kept writing them back explaining that she didn’t have that data and why. How harshly should D judge them for that? Again, she was probably on a list and everyone else on that list was getting that message. Still, other schools managed not to do that to her.</p>
<p>Well, I guess parents and children all have reasons for their college selection, but the education will depend on the random collection of professors they study with.</p>
<p>And the kids’ ultimately make their own selections.</p>
<p>I’m the OP. Watching these responses has been fascinating. Of course I am not ruling out NW as a possible college! Nevertheless, I was disappointed.</p>
<p>Word processing has eliminated many errors, but I think the treacherous “however” has flown under that radar screen. One of the things I love about emailing etc is that we don’t need to obsess about grammar. But in a job letter or an application or an official mailing… </p>
<p>let’s let this rest, at least as far as I am concerned. the day The New Yorker makes this mistake, though, I am going to be sad.</p>
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<p>I agree completely, Marian.</p>
<p>Pharmagal, I’d be very surprised if any usage manual said that there’s anything incorrect about using “meet with” as opposed to “meet.” They mean two very different things. Using “meet” alone creates an ambiguity as to whether the speaker means “meet for the first time” or “have a meeting with.” Using both allows for greater clarity.</p>
<p>I think the mistake mentioned in the original post might have bothered me a little, but only a little. I’m resigned to the fact that most people appear to have forgotten (or, perhaps, never knew) how to use semi-colons. I use too many of them myself (because I don’t think in short sentences!), and often go through my first drafts of memoranda of law to take out large numbers of semi-colons and replace them with periods.</p>